Education dept urged to defer reopening of school until vaccination of school children complete

7 February 2022

By Wartawan Nabalu News

KOTA KINABALU: The State Education Department has been urged to defer the reopening of school sessions as Covid-19 vaccination among school children between the age of five and 11 have not been completed.

Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin said this is because, like any other state, Sabah is seeing a spike in Covid-19 cases due to the raging Omicron variant.

“In Sabah, cases in Sabah have surged from less than 200 to 1,250 cases in four days with four new clusters reported related to education institutions.

“As vaccination against Covid-19 for children between five and 11 has not been completed, I urge the education department to defer going back to school until all the schoolchildren have been fully vaccinated … or until statistics reveal a less dangerous level to these children,” he said in a statement today, adding that statistics have shown that vaccination help to cut down infection rate.

According to Chan, the education department should bear in mind that if children get sick from Covid-19, parents would be forced to miss work to care for their children if

“Production level will definitely be undermined since our government has indicated that there will be no more lockdown as we can't afford the adverse economic impact.

“It only makes sense to prevent infections as much as possible. Most importantly, it gives peace of mind to the worrying parents.”